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y.a. first 7x lathe Q

W

whirlwynds

New Member
I am debating between the busy bee cx704 and the Littlemachineshop hitorque 5100. worth the extra bucks and hassle for the 5100? I'd order it to niagara falls and use crossborder pickups to broker customs and transport it across the border to toronto. busy bee is local... 3 year warranty on the BB, 1 year on the LMS. brushless motor on the LMS. any other considerations?
 
Oui en effet ils manquent de personel qualifié pour faire leurs réparation. Je possède ce tour CX704 il va bien ,mais j'ai du canceller la (safety switch ) du garde ,elle empêchait le tour de démarrer. Le mandrin pour les mèche est beaucoup trop grop gros pour la capacité du moteur et prend beaucoup de place pour rien. Pour des petites pièces c'est bien. Je ne suis pas machiniste mais débutant. A la minute que le moteur force trop le tour arrête. Vous remettez la switch a off et et a on et sa fonctionne de nouveau. Je ne suis pas déçu du résultat.
 
If I could easily obtain a LMS machine that would be my choice.
Everything I’ve read about Busy Bee leads me to never want to order from them.


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Up to 1990 or a little later they were still co-ordering with Grizzly and their quality was excellent. Now these days, no one in any store seem to know or care about metal work. The quality has gone down hill. Some of their woodworking machines and belt sanders are just fine.
 
Merci Marc. Alors vous trouvez le précision acceptable? Avez vous considérez des autres modèles comme king ou LMS?
 
Dabbler said:
Up to 1990 or a little later they were still co-ordering with Grizzly and their quality was excellent. Now these days, no one in any store seem to know or care about metal work. The quality has gone down hill. Some of their woodworking machines and belt sanders are just fine.
Click to expand...
Yes. It’s tough these days to distinguish between all of these Asian tools. For example the craftex 10” bandsaw vs the rikon one. The price is obviously tempting, but will it function in the way you need it to...
 
King machines seem to be robust. I don't know about today's quality. The Modern 636 is a nice machine, but a little spendy.
 
grizzly et Busybee tant qu'a moi sont la même chose un USA et l'autre Canadien j'ai eu plus d'infos sur ma milling Craftex sur le site de Grizzly que les infos de Busybee. Mais j'ai déjà vue des mauvaises expériences sur nos voisins Américains qui semblaient enragés par leurs mauvais service. Moi j'ai un très bon service avec Rock chez Busybee a Ottawa il est très attentif et s'occupe bien de moi. La personne qui vous sert peut faire toute la différence. Aujourd'hui il est difficile de parler a quelqu'un au téléphone ,je site faite le 1 pour parler a un autre département faite le 2 ainsi de suite et finalement nos employés sont toutes présentement occupé,gardez la ligne et j'ai attendu jusqu'a une demi heure. Sa me fait du bien d'en parler.
 
On Youtube, there are several good channels where they make use of a Chinese mini lathe. I don't own one but my impression is that you need to basically treat it as a "kit" that you can make into a usable lathe. Initially it may need a bunch of cleaning and deburring, etc. Later, you may do a bunch of modifications to make it more capable.

ThisOldTony did a great video on a similar machine:


Personally, I'd rather buy an older non-asian lathe even if it needs some repairs and tuning. South Bend, Atlas, Myford and Logan all made bench-top lathes that, to me, have better 'bones'. Parts are generally available; some more reasonably priced and other more ridiculous. It may need work but so with the Chinese lathe. In the end, I think you'll have more to show for your efforts with a used non-asian lathe.

YMMV

Craig
 
I would look into online orders for larger models like 7 x 14 or even 7 x 16. No support but price is good. They are made in the same factory (1 or more) so "quality" will be the same. I would not worry at all about parts availability - as long as it is a mini lathe or mini mill they made so many millions of them that parts are all over the place.

Yes you can get used lathe - but getting one that is in excellent shape is more of an art - it takes some time to figure stuff out. Frequently you need a lathe to fix more broken down lathe. Also badly clapped out US / UK made iron may not be such a great deal - not that it should matter that much for a beginner. You are not going to be making precision parts anytime soon.

Think of resale value, what you are getting for how much $$$ spent. Both with new and used.

You can make precision parts with a mini lathe - it just needs some "changes" - there are videos online where people made "ultra precision mini lathe" - involves changes like bearings and new chucks etc. Think of mini lathe like AK-47 - its cheap widely used and does basic job well. If you want precision you will need to make changes but most of the time for average use its not that needed.
 
+1 to the above. I have been doing this nearly 40 years (45 if you include High school shop class). I've made some big mistakes in purchases, but I was earning enough that they were,'t devastating. It takes a lot of time (sweat equity) knowledge (experience) and a little luck to get a really good used lathe.

For instance, a previous purchase will be excellent, once I put another 100 hours into it. I am going to sell my last 'purchased new' machine, and then all my mills and lathes will be used.

On the bright side: with very few exceptions, the larger, older, more worn out machines will often pull a better chip and be more accurate than the newly purchased micro/mini lathes. They give better surface finish with less problems, and they can use a cutoff blade without chatter. But I'm biased towards bigger, heavier machines. Some people just don't have the room.
 
Thank you to all for the responses. How are the emco lathes? looking at a compact 5 as an alternative to a chinese 7x, but i feel like perhaps there are more parts available for the chinese lathes?
 
Small machines are as mentioned a kit lathe, needs love, lots of write ups on this forum, I’ve owned one and may get another.
 
My undertanding (could be wrong) 'old Emco' was Austrian made, well built hobby machines generally under the Maximat ## model name series.
https://www.google.com/search?q=emc...XRGTQIHaj9AKEQ_AUoAXoECAwQAw&biw=1920&bih=937

Similar to the Myford story, eventually stopped production in the 90's? at least in the smaller hobby sizes. I think there is still a European Emco entity but all high end industrial machines. There used to be Yahoo group dedicated to the euro Enco machines & even a decade or so there was much talk of parts cannibalization or re-creation to keep the oldies going. Not to be confused with EMCO lathes which were Asian, typically from Taiwan at the time sold under different labels. But AFAIK look a bit more like current conventional hobby lathes & not sure really? if there was an attempt to copy or model themselves after Emco style. I don't recall seeing to many with integral mill head pillar. Some liked the milling attachment, others not.
 
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